Fly the Branded Skies

Jingle: “You’re Gonna Luv that Southwest Spirit” (1982)

Listen: Southwest Airlines: “You're Gonna Luv That Southwest Spirit”

GSD&M has been Southwest Airlines’ advertising agency for more than thirty years. The exclusivity of that relationship is currently in question, with at least eight agencies now vying for a major assignment from the carrier. As Southwest reviews its account, it seems like a good time to review some of the earliest work.

This jingle comes from GSD&M’s first major campaign for Southwest in 1982.

GSD&M was not Southwest’s first agency. Many of the defining characteristics of the Southwest Airlines brand — “love,” for example — were already present when the Bloom Agency handled the account. In fact, the Bloom Agency’s last campaign jingle was entitled “Lovin’ you is what we do.” A 1977 commercial’s tagline was “We’re spreading love all over Texas.” Another campaign promised “love, Southwest Style.”

So GSD&M’s campaign, “You’re gonna love our Southwest Spirit,” was hardly a break from earlier work — it was a continuation of the brand Southwest had been building throughout the 1970s. But it certainly included a memorable commercial starring Herb Kelleher:

I’ve written before that GSD&M’s jingles for Southwest fall into four categories: a capella, hoedown, jingle, and power ballad. This is your standard jingle. Certainly the way the singers belt out “We’re Southwest! Airlines!” is pretty conventional fare. But there is still something endearing — to borrow a word from the lyrics — about the song.

At around the same time another Texas-based airline, Braniff, was singing “We better be better,” Southwest Airlines was confessing its love for its passengers: “We owe it all to you.”

So many airline jingles preen like cats; this one slobbers all over you like a puppy.